Batman v Superman is the movie America needs right now

If you’re like me, you’re up late watching CNN coverage of the 2016 election. You’ve finished your most on-the-nose strong beer (in my case a 32-ounce can of Arizona Wilderness American Presidential Stout). You should go to bed, but you can’t stop fretting over the future of this country.

Everyone loved Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight because he was an agent of chaos. A dog chasing cars, he tells us. No one seems to understand Lex Luthor’s motivation in BvS, so let me spell it out for you.

He’s a petulant toddler throwing a temper tantrum. He inherited fame and fortune from his father, and he uses it to stoke his own delusions of grandeur. He’s playing with fire, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and it doesn’t matter because it more or less works.

Now watch Batman try to redeem himself. By the time he starts to believe, by the time he starts fighting the real bad guy, it’s too late. The world is doomed. The bells have rung.

And yet Batman emerges from the whole thing with hope. Maybe if you watch Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice on the day after Election Day 2016, you’ll feel it, too.

Men are still good. We fight. We kill. We betray one another. But we can rebuild. We can do better. We will. We have to.